During my senior year, I was one of 3 lead producers for the School of Fashions graduate fashion show, titled Mass Exodus. For the first semester, our class was led through a comprehensive course all about fashion shows and fashion events, learning budgeting, how to take guests on an emotional journey, a history of fashion shows and how to structure them, how to make a run of show, music selection, space design, and so much more. After applying for and receiving our positions on the show team during the winter break, we got to work putting our new knowledge into practice. As an event producer, it was my job to ensure everything was getting done on time, on budget, and to the best of our abilities. We had 300 guests per show and had 3 shows between 12 and 6 on the day of the event, and our work was well received by the design students, guests, and staff alike.
My role included:
Pitching for funding
Maintaining adherence to the budget
Creating and implementing a model training program
Selecting the DJ and working with him to create a setlist
Working with our production and creative teams on space design, lighting, and sound elements
Working with my 2 fellow producers to effectively lead the production team and ensure all tasks were being executed
Hiring a runway photographer.
Creating the running order for the runway shows
Calling the runway shows
Creating a run of show
Event setup and tear down
Putting out fires on the day of the event
This was an amazing experience and I learned so much about running events (Shoutout to my professor Dirk De Waal). Working on Mass Ex has sparked an interest in producing more fashion shows and fashion events after seeing how impactful it can be.
Below, you can view one of the runway shows as well as a behind the scenes video my classmate Niusha made.
OUT OF OFFICE
OUT OF OFFICE
I have been running ‘Out Of Office’ parties under Secretaries for the past year to build the brands grassroots community and express the brand values in a more experiental way that is cheaper to access than buying product.
When planning these parties, I typically run it on my own. I try to find unique, untapped venues and bring DJs my crowd my not be familiar with to create a new experience. They have been a mix of DIY events and partnerships with local nightclubs and the goal is always to provide the most immersive and fun experience for partygoers.
My role includes
Venue scouting
Curating the DJ lineup
Budgetting
Creating and executing a marketing plan
Managing digital ticket sales
Hiring and managing event staff, from bartenders to security guards to event photographers and videographers
Working with a team to design the space and create a certain experience for partygoers
Renting equipment
These events are a great experience and have taught me so much about event planning, execution, and hospitality.
Video Marketing
Below are some fun video’s we created to market the OOO parties. These always add a fun flavour which tailors people’s expectations going in so they know to come in with a great vibe.
Make it stand out.
SSICC
The Secretaries Shirley International Chess Club- otherwise known as S.S.I.C.C- is a collaborative event between Secretaries and Toronto-based brand Shirley Company. As we are good friends, we decided in the Spring of 2023 we wanted to throw a collaborative event. Simultaneously, we noticed a rising interest in chess, theorizing that people wanted to seem sophisticated and intellectual. This led to the development of our chess club, which was a party that combined dance music with chess and focused on creating a fun, easy going atmosphere that encouraged new friendships.
While this concept was bubbling, a new bar called Bowie opened up and was becoming a buzzing spot in Toronto. So, we reached out and booked our first chess club. We got custom wooden chess boards made, hired some great house DJs, made some flyers, and had a great event.
SSICC x Soho House
In December of 2023, we decided to bring the event back at a bigger, more accessible scale. Bowie was a great first event, but it was a small venue and lot of our community couldn’t get in. Soho Toronto is much bigger, but typicaly inaccessible for a younger crowd. We reach out and book an event- they give us budget as they want to bring more young people out. So we book 2 extremely talented vinyl DJs from the city, Milch and Bikethug
We ended up with over 300 attendees and had a great night as people were able to dance, play chess, and socialize at their own pace which created a house-party energy. We viewed this as a success and wanted to continue building.
Finally, it was time to put the ‘international’ in SSICC. Paris had long been one of the cities we wanted to throw a chess club at in the future, and PFW was the perfect opportunity to do so- when else is seemingly the entire industry in one city? We got to work and eventually found WAX Bar, a hifi cocktail bar with great interior design in the 10th with a super receptive owner named Oz. We booked it, filmed a promo clip, found a DJ, made a flyer, and set out to Paris with the goal of meeting and inviting as many people as we could in the first few days of fashion week. It ended up being a success, with around 75 attendees throughout the night and a lot of local Parisians which we were stoked on. It was a great first step into the international game, and we plan on scaling these global parties over the next 2 years.
